Health

“Gooder Friday.” That’s what I remember calling it on those rare occasions, like this year, when Good Friday and Passover coincided. It opened a window of mutual celebration for me with my Christian friends, making it a double Good Friday.

Last week, B.B. wrote that her father would like to move to a retirement community; her mother is refusing to budge. The reader wanted information about such communities and a way to get her parents on the same page.

LOS ANGELES - A federal judge ordered a Los Angeles manufacturer to stop producing ready-to-eat smoked and pickled fish due to failure to control the bacteria which causes listeriosis and botulism, the U.

CONAKRY, Guinea >> The West African countries hit hardest by Ebola are ramping up efforts to eradicate the deadly disease using lockdowns, restrictions on burials and a warning to survivors about the potential dangers of unprotected sex.

When federal inspectors set out to examine how powerful antipsychotic drugs were being used on children in the nation’s public health systems, they found a 4-year-old on four psychiatric drugs, a 10-year-old prescribed without medical records, and a 16-year-old on six psych meds, including a prescription at double the maximum recommended dosage.

The sound of hammers and saws coming soon to a vacant Reseda lot means that someone like Stephanie Sullivan will have a home where she will be cared for and her needs understood. Come January, Sullivan, who has

A young San Fernando Valley woman who lost her leg and won a $28.2 million lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente said Thursday she hopes the verdict will bring reform against the managed care giant and empower patients to question their treatment.

SACRAMENTO >> Brittany Maynard speaks in support of California’s aid-in-dying legislation in a video recorded before her death that her family will release ahead of a Senate committee’s vote on the bill Wednesday.

The future of health care may soon come down to virtual physicians, implants under the skin that hold medical records and personal vital signs accessible from an app. A savvier public that demands better, less expensive access to care will lead patients to be the bosses of their own health, said Dr.

Green spaces, including parks and recreational areas, have the potential to improve neighborhoods and transform the health of those living in the surrounding community. Physical activity, together with nutritious and balanced food choices, are the key to living a healthier lifestyle and feeling good.

Q: I have a small problem with my parents who are in their early 70s. My father wants to move to a retirement community, my mother doesn’t. I would like to help them in their decision and also bring my mother “on board.

WASHINGTON >> The Supreme Court on Monday seemed skeptical that the nation’s disabilities law requires police to take special precautions when arresting armed and violent suspects who are mentally ill.

Health care advocates released a study Monday on the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act in California praising the federal law for expanding funding to cover millions of people in need but adding that more can be done to improve health care across the Golden State.

While the ongoing measles outbreak has focused attention on vaccination rates at kindergartens, the even more vulnerable population at preschools and day cares may also be at risk from vaccine-preventable diseases.

LOS ANGELES — More than two dozen California vintners are facing a lawsuit claiming their wines contain dangerously high levels of arsenic. The industry group Wine Institute dismissed the allegations as “false and misleading.

“For better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…” Those wedding vows weren’t just words to Conrad Kreiger. When better turned to worse, richer became poorer, and sickness dominated health in his marriage, he didn’t cut and run like men are more prone to do than women, according to a recent Iowa State University study published in HealthDay News.

CARSON CITY, Nev. >> Pets might soon be able to use pot under a bill introduced Tuesday in the Nevada Legislature. Democratic Sen. Tick Segerblom is sponsoring the measure that would allow animal owners to get marijuana for their pet if a veterinarian certifies the animal has an illness that might be alleviated by the drug.

Leaders of a publicly funded Los Angeles County health access provider spent $476,000 on expensive dinners and entertainment for themselves, while their clients, who are mostly low income and on Medi-Cal, waited in long lines to receive care, said Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

Dear readers, The South Bay Cities Council of Governments recently had its 16th annual General Assembly in Carson, attended by elected officials, regional policymakers and civic leaders, so I was pleased to be invited as part of a panel.

SANTA ANA >> The anti-vaccination movement is likely to blame for the recent measles outbreak linked to a Disneyland, according to research published Monday by the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Pediatrics publication.

Even if you dread having a colonoscopy — and who doesn’t? — Fritz will make you laugh. Although likely best known for the last 32 years as the NBC4 weatherman in Southern California, Fritz Coleman has had another career even longer.

SAN DIEGO >> New research boosts hope that a highly anticipated, experimental class of cholesterol drugs can greatly lower the risk for heart attacks, death and other heart-related problems. The government will decide this summer whether to allow two of these drugs on the market.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone >> Ten health care workers with a Boston-based nonprofit organization responding to Sierra Leone’s Ebola outbreak are to be evacuated to the United States after one of their colleagues was infected with the deadly disease.

PASADENA >> While his mother talked to doctors in a hallway, Auguste Majkowski, 3, lay down on an examination table, pointed his right ear at the ceiling and smiled. He kicked his feet in the air as he waited for his nine-month checkup.

Two local campuses in the California State University system have seen sharp drops in the number of uninsured students since a campaign was launched last year to encourage students to sign up for health coverage under the

California hospitals and other healthcare settings have seen some improvements controlling infection rates, but one particular bacteria continues to be a significant public health threat, according to a

It was a long day at the beach for Peter Wallerstein. The founder of the Marine Animal Rescue Team has been putting in many hours traveling the shoreline from Pacific Palisades to Wilmington, picking up starving and sick sea lion pups in what is turning into a record year for such strandings.

State regulators are rejecting thousands of requests from California physicians to prescribe antipsychotic drugs to poor children and foster youth, a dramatic first step in the state’s new effort to curb the excessive prescribing of powerful mind-altering medications.

PASADENA>> Dylan Wolfe, like many 2-year-olds, loves to play, especially with his stuffed animals. But Dylan’s play unfortunately rarely includes other children, and may also include bumps, falls and trips, since he is legally blind.

“What is the hardest thing about your job?” Ashtyn asked me. The vivacious college junior was a participant in Break with a Pro, a roundtable discussion that I chaired recently at the Associated Collegiate Press convention.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you probably have heard of the Paleo, or “caveman,” diet. This way of eating based on the diets of our hunter-gather ancestors from more than 10,000 years ago has been growing significantly in popularity.

Clusters of syphilis that cause blindness have been reported on the West Coast, prompting the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to warn physicians to be extra vigilant of patients reporting visual problems.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. >> Smoke wafting from wood fires has long provided a familiar winter smell in many parts of the country — and, in some cases, a foggy haze that has filled people’s lungs with fine particles that can cause coughing and wheezing.

While the second round of Obamacare open enrollment is over, your paperwork may not be. For it’s tax time, and as I suspected, this is shaping up to be a stressful period for many Californians who remained uninsured or purchased health insurance from

PASADENA >> Researchers at Caltech have discovered a culprit for why people feel sluggish when the clocks spring forward. David Prober, co-author of a study published last week in the journal Neuron, said people have long known sleep is regulated by internal cues as well as external ones such as darkness and light.

HINKLEY >> By the side of a washboard-rough dirt road, in a garage piled high with rocks neatly stored in pizza-sized boxes, the long-awaited study has begun to determine how much of the world’s largest chromium-6 plume is the result of a San Francisco-based utility’s operations and how much was put there by nature.

The manufacturer of a medical instrument at the center of a recent “superbug” outbreak in Los Angeles did not receive federal clearance to sell the device, according to officials from the Food and Drug Administration.